Not yet, but that’s the fantasy I’m playing out in my head now. I’m not a very happy guy these days. I work an average of 9.5 hours a day, spent another 3 hours in the car (if I’m lucky), and spend the rest of the time doing domestic things and sleeping. To top it off, my work schedule makes it very difficult to see people and is really messing with my circadian rhythm.

I feel that I have potential to be successful doing the things I want to do. I think if I had a little time I could be a talented guy and do some pretty neat things, but I’m very hung up on doing things the traditional way and worrying about what other people will think or say. When I look back on my life thirty years from now, I don’t think I’m going to say, “Wow. I really wish I’d stayed longer at the job I hated.” I think I’ll say, “Wow, I wish I’d driven a motorcycle across the country/edited that novel I wrote/drawn a comic book/wrote more songs about pretty librarians, etc.” I keep talking about these things (and thinking about them every waking hour), but making very small steps in the right direction.

So in this fantasy where I quit my job, I have all sorts of time, but where does the income come from? I imagine I would make use of my talents somehow to make money and maybe have some part time coffee slinging job to fill the gap. Maybe the fear of not having a steady paycheck would force me to succeed. I don’t know. I won’t pretend the plan doesn’t have kinks. Yesterday I was reading an article about people who sell their wares through Etsy. A few of these people were making six figure incomes, the trade off being that they put in 13-14 hour days working at home. I’m not sure I would have a problem with that seeing as I’m going 13 hours a day now anyway. I’m not suggesting that I would solve my money woes exclusively by selling things on Etsy, only illustrating that there are people who have found ways to work for themselves and I think I might like to be one of them.

What’s the worst that could happen? I could die a horrible and painful death, but that’s true any day of the year. The more reasonable reality is that I’d incur a fair amount of debt and be unemployed, but grad students all over the world are doing just that, so why can’t I?

My short term goals are procuring a new computer, setting up a business on the side (so that I can write off all my expenses, like computers), and see how much I can push myself in the little bit of spare time I have. Unfortunately, I have to work overtime this weekend…eight hours of counting inventory. Saturday night I’ll be at my father’s 50th birthday party. There is still Christmas shopping to be done. So little time to work with and I just spent fifteen minutes writing this post.

Filed under: General by John